annamerikin

Recent comments

Re: Linux developers need more cooperation with experts
Yeah, it came with my first Linux, SuSE 5.0. I'll keep wp51, which I already know. I just can't deal with a text editor like vim. I copyedit a 60-character line; wp breaks this line perfectly all the time on the screen. I can't imagine how to make vim do that...I didn't learn how to quit the damn program (keep hitting escape until it beeps, then type :q ?) for months. Every time it came up as the default editor, I had to go to another terminal to kill it! Then I figured out to use pico as an alias, and life was a little better.

Note I am not a computer student nor a professional. I am a writer who now uses a computer instead of a typewriter, cause who ever heard of a typewriter that can copy and paste text from the internet or from reference and research tools on CD-ROM and then write original material from these sources, edit it, proof it, choose its page makeup, preview it, and repaginate everything automatically if an error is found in the first page of a final submission?

Wordperfect for DOS is becoming a little like the old Royal iron typewriters of the thirties were for professional writers: irreplaceable and a badge of honor -- just like vim is for programmers, I'm sure.

And that's my (and the OP's) point. There needs to be tools already made or home computers' will be limited to web surfing and those who do homework or who work at home.

> When You look at Linux, I have the
> impression, it's been only developed by
> simple hackers like we find them here on
> freshmeat. You can make
> many things more intuitive, so newbies
> like the OS more. The best way to do
> that is dialog with experts on a certain
> topic, before designing wrong
> architectures.
>

That's why WordPerfect still has the market for legal word-processing software to itself. That was their focus group, apparently, back in the DOS 4.x series, and their features for that profession continue to this day. The same holds true for the early Lotus spread, and I remember how long it took them to recognize managers needed to generate virtual `what if' scenarios that wouldn't change the saved results. (Duh!) I am a writer so I need a professional wp that does what a good editor does easily with pen on paper (copy editing markup). Some recommend LyX or even TeTex, but those are set up for university pubs, not for commercial presses and there are no features (del sentence, replace phrase, move paragraph down four, etc.) for editing, just for typesetting.

Programmers need to to know intimately how professionals do their jobs in order to make software that does things according to the customs and needs of the trade. Otherwise, computers will remain toys for hobbyists and university students.

This is what makes the Gimp, for example, so difficult for me to learn; it bears no similarity to the processes I am familiar with in commercial image processing. It is a bit like trying to draw in POVray! Although it is an exceptional tool, it will never replace Photoshop for exactly that reason -- it flies against professional convention.

For another example, I often use XV to crop images quickly. In an art department of an ad agency, we used two right-angled cardboard templates and put it over the image, adjusting its size and placement until we found what we liked. XV tries to simulate this by making an expanding box with the cursor through the mouse. Although this expands and contracts like the real-life cropper, it cannot be moved randomly over the image easily at the same time and it does not make the part of the image cropped disappear or be blocked by the edge of the cursor-box. Why?

As far as fonts are concerned, print them out a page for each and keep them in a hard-copy book. The test text can include the information you need to find the alias and location of what you decide to use. For now, that seems to be a workaround until some programmer teams up with a good, experienced graphics designer to make a program that is truly usable, not just a superb technical exercise.

PS: I have already made the macros I need for WP-5.1, which works fine under DOSemu. I refuse to learn to program Emacs macros or WP8 to do the same....so there is no need to suggest this option. Once I edit on DOS' WP, I make the page up (if needed) on Linux WP8 (Thanks, Corel.)